The overall goal of this research is to develop a rapid, quantitative in vivo assay format for screening angiogenic drug candidates using zebrafish as a model organism. Angiogenesis is well established as a major biological process involved in several pathological conditions, including cancer, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, ischemic heart disease, peripheral arterial disease, and impaired wound healing. However, the lack of understanding of the biological basis of angiogenesis and the lack of assays and animal models have hampered drug development. A significant advantage of the proposed zebrafish assay is that the therapeutic potential of a compound is evaluated in a complex physiological environment with much higher throughput than mammalian in vivo bioassays. Using cell-based screens, this information is impossible to obtain.
Angiogenesis has been shown to be involved in several serious diseases, including diabetes, cancer, heart disease and macular degeneration. This SBIR aims to develop a high throughput quantitative in vivo zebrafish microplate based assay for evaluating angiogenic effects of potential therapeutics. ? ? ?
